Shotlist

"The tragedy that we saw yesterday, or this morning rather, off the coast of Lesbos is yet another tragedy. And I think the Secretary General, as he has said previously, is heartbroken by the number of deaths that we've seen in the Mediterranean this year. I think this again underscores the need for a comprehensive approach to dealing with the current refugee and migrant crisis we're seeing in Europe."

"The Secretary General is I think very much encouraged about the meeting in Vienna. This is something that he has been calling for, getting the key international countries around the table, the key partners around the table in trying to resolve this situation in Syria through dialogue."

5. Wide press conference

Storyline

United Nations officials expressed encouragement over the upcoming meeting regarding the Syrian crisis, seeing it as an opportunity for a much needed "comprehensive approach to dealing with the current refugee and migrant crisis" in Europe.

Spokesman for UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon Stephane Dujarric said the Secretary General was "heartbroken" upon hearing about the recent drownings in the Mediterranean.

Five separate incidents in the eastern Aegean Sea on Wednesday left at least 12 people dead, most of them children.

Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II is entering a perilous and uncharted phase, as the usual pattern of migrant season ending by autumn is overturned by intensifying fighting in Syria and overcrowding in refugee centers in Turkey and Lebanon.

Asylum applications in the European Union are expected to exceed 1 million this year, higher that the peak of 700,000 recorded in the early 1990s, when wars tore Yugoslavia apart.

Lesbos has borne the brunt of the refugee crisis in Greece, with more than 300,000 people reaching the island this year on small boats from Turkey, police say.